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Libya:Benghazi Embassy Attack And All The Ugly News &quot;Not Fit To Print&quot;

No doubt many Libyans are good people. But there is solid evidence of a deep undercurrent of extremism among those recently catapulted to positions of power in the country. That is a reality.

[Speaking Truth To Power]

Last week’s bombing in Benghazi, Libya was another tragic incident underscoring the dangers of underestimating, or ignoring, the consequences of Western imperial meddling.

In the aftermath of this surgical attack against the American Embassy in Benghazi, Washington and the White House is assuring Americans that the Libyan “government” stands with America.

Is this really the case, or, are these Libyan leaders engaging in deceit and deception to hide their own connections to the extremist elements in their midst? Wasn’t this bombing really an example of “blowback” stemming from misguided foreign policy?

Last week Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, 52, was murdered along with ex-Navy Seals Glen Doherty, 42, Tyrone Woods, 41, and information management officer Sean Smith, 34, an Air Force veteran, at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The attack was launched during a demonstration against a video called “Innocence of Muslims” that disparages the Islamic Religion and the Prophet Muhammad.

The video, at first, was linked to person named Sam Bacile, who was, supposedly, an Israeli-American; that was later revealed to be untrue. However, the FBI has contacted a 55-year-old Egyptian-American and Coptic Christian named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula who lives in California. Mr. Nakoula, who was convicted of bank fraud in 2009, is believed to have used the name Sam Bacile in the film credits. Another Egyptian-American and Coptic Christian Morris Sadek—who has ties to Pastor Terry Jones whose threats to burn copies of the Koran sparked lethal riots in Afghanistan last year and in 2010—has also been linked to the film. Mr. Sadek, a lawyer, reportedly, dubbed the movie into Arabic.

The initial protests, against the film, occurred in Egypt and Libya but have mushroomed to over a dozen countries around the Muslim World. On Friday, the American Embassy in Tunis was penetrated and at least three protesters were killed and 28 were wounded. Marines have been dispatched to protect the embassy in Sana, Yemen.

Other Western nations are also now being targeted in the aftermath of the galvanizing rage many Muslims feel over the film. In the Sudan, the German and British embassies have already faced threats because of the uprisings. Palestinians, in the Gaza Strip, demonstrated on Friday, with some stomping on Israeli and American flags and others shouting “Death to America and Israel.” Demonstrations also occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Yemen, Qatar, Morocco, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan, and in Lebanon where Pope Benedict XVI appealed for peace and denounced religious fundamentalist zealots.

In Egypt, the protest was, largely, peaceful—except for the fact that an American Embassy’s flag was removed and burned during the demonstration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the anti-Islamic film saying “The United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message.” Mrs. Clinton also said “How can this happen in a country, in a city we helped save from destruction?” referring to Benghazi.

This statement is shocking.

If the secretary of state is being honest, somebody dropped the ball here. The fact is the evidence has always been there that violent extremists—including Al-Qaeda—are an integral part of those who, supposedly, liberated Benghazi.

During the “rebel” protests in Libya, The Black Star News and this column space, repeatedly, made the case that this imperial intervention was unwise. In several columns, I cited the evidence contained in the Sinjar Records, illustrating that many of the so-called “rebels” were suicide bombers and terrorists who fought in Iraq—and most likely had the blood of dead American soldiers on their hands.

The Sinjar Records were a treasure trove of around 700 files that were seized, in October 2007, on the battlefields of Sinjar, in Northwest Iraq, along the Syrian border. These files contained important demographic information and vital statistics of the suicides bombers and jihadists fighting in Iraq. These records were taken to the Combating Terrorism Center—at West Point Military Academy where they were analyzed by Colonel Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, who then released a report of their findings.

One of the more important passages in that report reads as follows “Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone. Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia.” Another passage says this “The vast majority of the Libyan fighters…resided in the country’s Northeast, particularly the coastal cities of Darnah and Benghazi.” These records should make us question Libyan President Mohammad Magarie claim that the attack was perpetrated by “foreigners” and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice’s statement that the bombing was “spontaneous.” Did people just “spontaneously” pull rocket launchers from their pockets?

Now, President Obama—relative to other presidents—has been a model of presidential prudence. However, the imperial intervention in Libya was not his finest hour. No doubt officials like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton whispered into his air that the demise of Colonel Quathafi would be a feather in his foreign policy cap, similar, to the killing of Osama bin Laden. But the president’s decision was wrong, especially, since much bloodshed could have been avoided if he had endorsed the cease-fire plan authored by the African Union.

As the protest rage on over the anti-Muslim video, we should remember this: the anger in the Muslim World has more to do with the West’s promoting of despots in the region than this film. Let’s remember, while Washington asked Egyptians to protest peacefully against former President Hosni Mubarak they signed on to armed insurgency in Libya. Western leaders denounced al-Quathafi, but why are they still supporting brutal dictators in places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bahrain? This type of duplicitous foreign policy is at the heart of Muslim hatred for America.

Moreover, part of the problem is encapsulated in presidential pretender Mitt Romney’s idiotic blathering about never apologizing for America. The fact of the matter is America should apologize for its inflammably meddling actions in the Muslim World. And contrary to what people like Mr. Romney think admitting wrongdoing is a form of strength—not weakness. Those who don’t realize this fail us all.

America’s “mainstream media” is also failing us all.

In their September 12, editorial, The New York Times made this curious statement “The violence done on Tuesday was apparently the work of a relatively small group of radicals.” One has to wonder what the Times mean by “relatively small?” The fact is The New York Times—like most of the so-called paragons of the press—failed to practice the “objective journalism” they preach because they wanted to print a nice narrative about America riding to the rescue of Benghazi against the hated Quatahfi.

The New York Times was a big promoter of the war.

The Times motto is: “all the news that’s fit to print.” Was the ethnic-cleansing of Black Libyans in Tawerga not “fit to print? With all their reporters and resources mainstream media failed to properly educate Americans about the true nature of those we were empowering in Libya -- inconvenient and even ugly truths were ignored.

No doubt many Libyans are good people. But there is solid evidence of a deep undercurrent of extremism among those recently catapulted to positions of power in the country. That is a reality.